Hypercruise

[CMDR Ewa]

Hi people

I want an HYPERCRUISE, please....

When we travel across the galaxy reaching far destinations, we have to jump, and jump and jump and rejump to stars again and again an then again [zZzZz] . I really love to explore the galaxy and i love to apprehend its vertiginous vastness before starting a new journey, but finally, I find this way of traveling annoying. Can I suggest a new solution to reach far points ?

Hypercruise would be a new type of FSD jump which would be between the supercruise and the witch space jumps. Faster than supercruise and globally slower than witch space jumps, but allows us to reach far destinations in only one jump for a longer time. For example 500 ly in 20 minutes to 1h, speed and range depending on FSD engine performance, ship weight, fuel remaining and fuel quality, and even local gravity value.
This type of travel would allow us to forget the travel and do another thing inside the ship (when space legs will be available).

The Hypercruise would be :

• 100,000 ls min to 3,000 ly range max. The max range would be traveled in 1h30 minimum (max speed) and the minimum range allows us to make mini jumps within a binary systems to reach a far star.
• Emergence directly to POI, space stations or coordinates point in normal speed (without passing by supercruise and heading a star), and emergence in front of planets or stars (big points) in supercruise.
• Space environment visible as in supercruise, but in an interstellar range (as in the 1st 30s of this trailer we could see the real stars and the real nebulas moving around us) we could even scan the closest stars and regions to find POI in void zones by traveling slowly.
• Allows us to stop in void zones outside systems in free coordinates.
• Allows us to change coordinates while travelling in hypercruise and make the ship modify its trajectory and speed. But we can't use the joystick and make the ship turn free like in supercruise mode.

The normal hyperspace jump (jump in witch space) would serve to go faster and would be used more wisely to reach a closer destination in few seconds depending on the jump range. For example if I need to run away to a 40 to 70 ly distant star or more, I can modify the jump range playing on the ship mass, FSD performance, fuel quality, and local gravity value, and make a fast jump the farest my jump range put me.

I have a bunch of ideas that I'll develop soon, especially on a best ship simulation.

Thank you all and sorry for my bad english....

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

Hi people

I want an HYPERCRUISE, please....

When we travel across the galaxy reaching far destinations, we have to jump, and jump and jump and rejump to stars again and again an then again [zZzZz] . I really love to explore the galaxy and i love to apprehend its vertiginous vastness before starting a new journey, but finally, I find this way of traveling annoying. Can I suggest a new solution to reach far points ?

Hypercruise would be a new type of FSD jump which would be between the supercruise and the witch space jumps. Faster than supercruise and globally slower than witch space jumps, but allows us to reach far destinations in only one jump for a longer time. For example 500 ly in 20 minutes to 1h, speed and range depending on FSD engine performance, ship weight, fuel remaining and fuel quality, and even local gravity value.
This type of travel would allow us to forget the travel and do another thing inside the ship (when space legs will be available).

The Hypercruise would be :

• 100,000 ls min to 3,000 ly range max. The max range would be traveled in 1h30 minimum (max speed) and the minimum range allows us to make mini jumps within a binary systems to reach a far star.
• Emergence directly to POI, space stations or coordinates point in normal speed (without passing by supercruise and heading a star), and emergence in front of planets or stars (big points) in supercruise.
• Space environment visible as in supercruise, but in an interstellar range (as in the 1st 30s of this trailer we could see the real stars and the real nebulas moving around us) we could even scan the closest stars and regions to find POI in void zones by traveling slowly.
• Allows us to stop in void zones outside systems in free coordinates.
• Allows us to change coordinates while travelling in hypercruise and make the ship modify its trajectory and speed. But we can't use the joystick and make the ship turn free like in supercruise mode.

The normal hyperspace jump (jump in witch space) would serve to go faster and would be used more wisely to reach a closer destination in few seconds depending on the jump range. For example if I need to run away to a 40 to 70 ly distant star or more, I can modify the jump range playing on the ship mass, FSD performance, fuel quality, and local gravity value, and make a fast jump the farest my jump range put me.

I have a bunch of ideas that I'll develop soon, especially on a best ship simulation.

Thank you all and sorry for my bad english....

1: The way hyperspace jumps work is that the FSD uses a select ammount of fuel to preform the jump instantaneously, combined with help from the Ship's sensors and Ship's AI to lock onto a tachyon signature of a star to plot a hyperspace jump. This way you dont crash into all those stars you pass by during hyperspace. There is no way that you are going to manually hyperspace without crashing into anything especially since Hyperspace travels upwards of 20,000 times the speed of light depending on FSD mass and fuel limits.
Additionaly you cant really see anything because of the quantum density of the ship at the time, aside from nearby stars.

2: Frontier will never give us a 3,000 LY range in a single fuel tank. that would break current entropy limits of any FSD in the game even if engineered.

3: the ship's AI needs a tachyon signature to preform a hyperspace jump, that means hyperspace navigation is 100% restricted to stars.

4: you do see stars pass by you while in hyperspace, but the quantum density of the ship is shifted to such a degree light from further sources is not seen as well as the light from stars that are immedately near you as you pass them

5: maybe an abort jump function could be added

6: Changing coordinates is impossible due to the fact that the ship's instruments are mostly blind during a hyperspace jump thanks to the ship's quantum density at the time, and the Ship's AI plots the jump arc before it enter's hyperspace and not during.

 

[varonica]

Hi people

I want an HYPERCRUISE, please....

Technically megaships can jump further, but they are using the old style technology as used by Jaques to get to Colonia and the capital ships. Megaship jump range is limited to 250ly and takes a week to make a jump, you really want to make a long jump and sit there for a week or more waiting? The technology used in the FSD is pretty much mapped out in the technology tree used in the Elite universe, yes it's a game and yes they could just randomly change things any way they want, and that's exactly what ruined every new star wars movie, ignoring the pre-existing technology and making magic by hyper jumping a ship inside a planetary force field, very convenient for some I guess.

The answer, if you haven't guessed already, is no.

 

[Kenpachi85]

The ops ideas aren't very practical, lore friendly or scientifically plausible as azmuth layed out in detail. Though I do think it would be cool if we could get stargates possibly reverse engineered from thargoid portal tech. Then maybe divide the galaxy into say 4 quadrants with a stargate at the middle of each quadrant connecting to the other 3. With that we could prolly make a real dent in getting all the galaxy mapped out. Just a thought

 

[Lestat]

I have to say this your idea is a bad idea. If you want to go the long distance you have to earn it.

 

[Morbad]

I don't like hyperspace, as it's yet another layer of loading screens and instance transitions.

Personally, I'd ditch jumping entirely and make it possible to supercruise between systems. Mechanically, this wouldn't involve anything different from supercruise now, except that SC speed limits and acceleration rates once away from gravity wells would have to scale to much higher levels (though I'd still want travel times to generally increase), and we'd need a more dynamic way to load systems and update the galaxy background/skybox.

Long distance travel would be a matter of avoiding gravity of stars to maximize SC velocity, while making sure one doesn't get too far out, less getting back to a fuel source become impossible. Winding one's way between stars would be a much more active and enjoyable way to travel than the current mechanism, IMO.

That said, this is a pipe dream. I have no expectation of such a radical change to travel mechanisms being practical to implement.

 

[varonica]

I don't like hyperspace, as it's yet another layer of loading screens and instance transitions.

Personally, I'd ditch jumping entirely and make it possible to supercruise between systems. Mechanically, this wouldn't involve anything different from supercruise now, except that SC speed limits and acceleration rates once away from gravity wells would have to scale to much higher levels (though I'd still want travel times to generally increase), and we'd need a more dynamic way to load systems and update the galaxy background/skybox.

Long distance travel would be a matter of avoiding gravity of stars to maximize SC velocity, while making sure one doesn't get too far out, less getting back to a fuel source become impossible. Winding one's way between stars would be a much more active and enjoyable way to travel than the current mechanism, IMO.

That said, this is a pipe dream. I have no expectation of such a radical change to travel mechanisms being practical to implement.

As Larry Niven wrote in "At The Core" the Quantum 2 hyperdrive, capable of only 1.25ly per minute, became almost impossible to use closer to the core because it required constant monitoring to avoid getting too deep into the gravity wells of stars and vanishing into hyperspace (Actually as we found out in the Ringworld series there are actually creatures that live in the dark matter halo surrounding stars and ships that entered hyperspace to close a star were actually being eaten). Without targetting stars as a destination and doing an instant jump past the intervening stars the SC mechanic, being subject to gravity wells and exclusion zones, would also necesitate this sort of attention to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. If we ramped the speed up so that travelling between say Sol and Proxima Centauri in less than 60 seconds rather than the three minutes it would take at Quantum 2 Hyperdrive speeds in the Niven Universe travelling at any sort of decent speed through the core would become.....impossible due to attention fatigue.

So the question is, in a game already full of players demanding stargates and wormholes, how much of a slowdown in travelling would be acceptible?

No I'm not against the idea, and weaving ones way through the starfield sounds like a very nice idea, and could work given a denser layer of...hmm how can I put it...interactive activites and events to give the travel some meaning. It's often been my contention that the entirety of the Elite Universe playground of locations and events could easily fit into one solar system were we to limit top speed to some fraction of light speed and fill the solar system with stations, aliens, wars and conflicts taking place between inhabited planets and space going factions, expand the asteroid belt, make the Oort Cloud the Beagle Point of the game and...well you get the idea. The Elite universe is, at the moment the merest fraction of what it should and could be in game play and interactivity.

FDEV have reached far and have yet to fill the galaxy they created, maybe from the beginning if it was designed the way you suggest it could have worked, slowed everything down, exploration and discovery in a much more densely realised local bubble, Sag A* being the far distant month travel away from reaching and Beagle Point only for the hardy and/or foolish willing to spend nearly a year trecking through the galaxy. Oh well, such are dreams.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

This type of travel would allow us to forget the travel and do another thing inside the ship (when space legs will be available).

This is the key bit. 90 minutes to travel 3000 LY? That's not a big deal for game balance - you can do that easily already with a 40LY range ship, even without neutron boosting ... a faster ship with neutron boosting could easily do it in 20 minutes, and record pace it could be done in about 10 minutes.

But: while 90 minutes of jumping and scooping is not the most interesting gameplay, it certainly beats 90 minutes of flying in an approximately straight line. There would need to be:
a) things to do on board the ship that could occupy those 90 minutes
b) things to do on board the ship that were required during those 90 minutes to avoid negative consequences (so you couldn't just leave it flying, have lunch, then come back when at your destination)

Megaship jump range is limited to 250ly and takes a week to make a jump, you really want to make a long jump and sit there for a week or more waiting?

Non-dockable megaships can jump further - there's a couple that make the entire Colonia-bubble distance in a single trip, though they do take *two* weeks to charge up for it.

Handwave your own explanation about why dockable ones are slower - something about the small FSDs on the ships interfering with the big FSDs on the carriers and limiting their range (which is also why we can't yet dock Sidewinders to our Anacondas, despite it being a canonical possibility), I guess.

Jaques technically used a very large FSD to make the jump to Colonia, but kicked out all docked ships beforehand, had an unreasonably large amount of fuel on-board, and irrepairably damaged the FSD in the process.

It's often been my contention that the entirety of the Elite Universe playground of locations and events could easily fit into one solar system were we to limit top speed to some fraction of light speed and fill the solar system with stations, aliens, wars and conflicts taking place between inhabited planets and space going factions, expand the asteroid belt, make the Oort Cloud the Beagle Point of the game and...well you get the idea. The Elite universe is, at the moment the merest fraction of what it should and could be in game play and interactivity.

You could go even smaller than that - limit top speeds to current Elite Dangerous real-space speeds, and Saturn's rings would be large enough that if everyone logged on at once they could spread out enough to be about 100km from the next player.

 

[AbsinthSvK]

I have to say this your idea is a bad idea. If you want to go the long distance you have to earn it.

yea you need to pay half of your childhood, spare time, some IQ points and get mental sickness from repeated animation.

 

[Kenpachi85]

yea you need to pay half of your childhood, spare time, some IQ points and get mental sickness from repeated animation.

Lol that's what's kept me from doing too much long range exploration when I get stuck way out there for awhile I start feeling like Tom Hanks in castaway except I have no Wilson with me. Ftr lestat it was just a thought not something I'm seriously suggesting or asking for. Ever since I saw how thargoids portal in and out I thought it would be cool if we could steal that tech and use it somehow.

 

[Berpol]

yea you need to pay half of your childhood, spare time, some IQ points and get mental sickness from repeated animation.

That is the reason it took me two months to reach Sagittarius A*.
Strangely enough the way back (including a visit at Colonia) only took a week.

 

[Lestat]

That is the reason it took me two months to reach Sagittarius A*.
Strangely enough the way back (including a visit at Colonia) only took a week.

Wow long time. Well, Alex Brentnall did it in 2 hours and 19 Minutes. And if you account for Colonia Which only takes 1 hour 52 Minutes. Going across My guess would be Less than 2 hours. So a total of 6 hours give or take half an hour. I still say no.


[video=youtube;y0tWZuvTWN8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0tWZuvTWN8[/video]
[video=youtube;DDbWf4bvWZ8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDbWf4bvWZ8&t=4s[/video]

 

[Morbad]

So the question is, in a game already full of players demanding stargates and wormholes, how much of a slowdown in travelling would be acceptible?

No matter how fast things get, some fraction will always want faster.

FDEV have reached far and have yet to fill the galaxy they created, maybe from the beginning if it was designed the way you suggest it could have worked, slowed everything down, exploration and discovery in a much more densely realised local bubble, Sag A* being the far distant month travel away from reaching and Beagle Point only for the hardy and/or foolish willing to spend nearly a year trecking through the galaxy. Oh well, such are dreams.

Most CMDRs likely never leave the bubble and I'd imagine most of the complaints steming from the removal of hyperspace, replacing it with an expanded supercruise, would come down to increases in travel times for short range journeys.

Long range trips would take maybe a few times longer than they did early in the game, but a trip to the system over would be at least an order of magnitude longer than it is now, even with a generous bump to SC acceleration and speed cap.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

I like the idea of an alternate travel mode. I think it is sorely needed in Elite Dangerous, as the tedium of repeat Hyperspace jumps on long exploration trips can get, well...tedious.
Also, as mentioned, the ability to explore your ship will make this sort of travel mode more pertinent, particularly if you can hire NPC crew, have other holo commanders pop in, and have functions or mini-games that can be activated from different parts of your ship.

I made a similar suggestion a short while back for a travel mode called Slipstream.

As for the lore side of things, Sci-Fi has been known to stretch interpretations of the laws of physics, or rewrite some of them based on the notion that we'd know more/better in the future, so I don't see a problem with not sticking to current understandings and theories.

 

[varonica]

I like the idea of an alternate travel mode. I think it is sorely needed in Elite Dangerous, as the tedium of repeat Hyperspace jumps on long exploration trips can get, well...tedious.
Also, as mentioned, the ability to explore your ship will make this sort of travel mode more pertinent, particularly if you can hire NPC crew, have other holo commanders pop in, and have functions or mini-games that can be activated from different parts of your ship.

I made a similar suggestion a short while back for a travel mode called Slipstream.

As for the lore side of things, Sci-Fi has been known to stretch interpretations of the laws of physics, or rewrite some of them based on the notion that we'd know more/better in the future, so I don't see a problem with not sticking to current understandings and theories.

Until you get pulled out of hypespace and destroyed before you can get back to the controls, and no, no instant teleport to the control thank you. You have made proposals, that's true, but how do you fit them into the elite technology tree? Mysterious alien technology? magic?

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

Until you get pulled out of hypespace and destroyed before you can get back to the controls, and no, no instant teleport to the control thank you. You have made proposals, that's true, but how do you fit them into the elite technology tree? Mysterious alien technology? magic?

My suggestion includes a trade-off whereby interdictions are not possible in a Slipstream, for which you sacrifice travel time, as at 10ly per minute, it's considerably slower than Hyperspace jumps.
So, you can't get pulled out of hyperspace and destroyed, and no instant teleportation is needed.

As for Elite's technology tree, which includes mysterious alien technology already, my suggestion is basically just a modified use of the existing FSD. If any Sci-Fi writer finds that difficult to write into the lore of the game, they should be fired for lack of imagination.

 

[Lestat]

I think it best to let Op suggest his own idea instead of having someone hijacking their thread to promote their own idea.

 

[VR CMDR Novindus]

I think it best to let Op suggest his own idea instead of having someone hijacking their thread to promote their own idea.

I mentioned it for reference, and then was challenged on the details of it.

Perhaps instead you should be advising Varonica to pose his/her question on the relevant thread, as long as you're up for policing the forums today?

 

[Decksmeck]

Well they could story tell a new type of hyperspace drive into the game. They need an exchange server that can make calculations about which star system to move you to as you leave one. You leave one, transfer through the exchange server to a new one. Then you can watch as the actual star systems wiz by. With the new drive it would be just like supercruise but faster and when someone wiz through the system, it will be even brighter and leave a trail that you can follow using your new wake scanner which makes the trail possible to see. Lol

Yeah I know. It is p2p. Exchange function then.

 

[CMDR Ewa]

I don't want to change the technology tree in the game. I don't want to change anything, i just want an additional type of travel that don't uselessly eat your time.

Under the existing fast hyperspace travel, i only want a sort of autopilot mode that can put us thousands LY away while we are working on something else inside the ship, or allows us to turn off the game while it bring the ship to the requested destination. It's just an additional type of travel that can put us at 3000ly 20% to 40% slower than the normal hyperspace mode.

We can imagine that after plotted a course to a distant point, the ship's computer start to calculate several points where the ship can blindly jump on some in a slower hyperspace that save fuel, then pass into a sort of fast supercruise where it could calculate the other blind slow jumps and so on until the requested destination. As an aircraft autopilot that follow the flight plan landmarks.

The first 30 seconds of a super cool trailer brought me in this game: this is it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE8B4KptyVI

Look at the jump, we can see all the environment in and out the jump, why don't we have that?...... i want that. There are communications while the jump.

I really think this game need an hypercruise to allow us to make other things while the ship is travelling. We can imagine after received an urgent message recalculate a new route while travelling in hypercruise and change trajectory. We could imagine repairing the ship, making mini missions inside it. Talking with npc, crafting things or make science, analyse visually or with instrument the environment (stars or nebulas or lone dark planets outside systems etc), seeking POI outside systems in void zones. There's no interstellar zone, the space is discontinuous. It could be cool to go in interstellar zones to seek hidden things.

I see a lot of people agree with me, thanks guys.